DrTom shares his intellectual inquiries, mental musings, and awkward adventures in upstate New York and around the world. Betcha can’t read just one.

"To hell with facts! We need stories!"
— Ken Kesey

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

I'm makin' money with Google Adsense

(Keep clicking friends. I made about three cents today.)

When I started this blog, I signed up for Google's Adsense program. This is the program that places ads on your site automatically based on the content of your blogs. Today, those ads appeared from Googlelandia like magic. And my Adsense report shows that so far I have made $.01. Every time someone comes to my blog (called an "impression") and every time someone clicks on one of those ads, I make money. Since the ads appeared, probably sometime last night, there have been 5 impressions, which I think is worth a penny. An actual click on an ad is worth more, I think, but I will find this out today when one of you clicks on "Cigar Humidor", or some other ad. By the way, it is absolutely illegal to click on your own ads; this is referred to as "click fraud", and Google will squeeze your family jewels in a vice for that offense.

Now, I didn't start this blog to make money. I wanted to blog because when you have taught classes for 30 years and then stop, your mouth keeps on going even though you are only talking to the black lab at your feet. If you suppress the talking, your blood pressure goes up, you drool more and, well, I explained all of that in a previous post. I just have a need to tell someone what I saw or what I am thinking. So consider this post as a "truth in advertising" thing, where I am explaining that I make beaucoup bucks when you come here and click. For example, at this rate of earning power, I could comfortably buy a Whopper at the end of a year, with some coin left over.

On the other hand, this is kinda cool. The Adsense report gives me an idea of how many people are coming to this site. We all want to know if we are having any kind of effect in life, and if no one reads your words, you are certainly NOT having any effect. So my approach is to lure you in with cute or sexy images (like family jewels in a vice), give you some information that you might actually enjoy hearing (like the chickadees are nesting now), and then slap you in the face with something that really concerns me about the world (like we are all going to hell in a hand basket). But this is only Day 4, so no slapping yet. Just show up, and read this over with your favorite beverage, and click a little more. I would like to buy a soda with that Whopper.

2 comments:

Great post! I know I've made myself a bit of an online hermit, but you'll be happy to know I finally signed onto Facebook and accepted your friendship request!

I hope all is well. Ryan tells me you are headed to Costa Rica in February. I'm sure that will be an amazing experience, as Costa Rica usually is.Feel free to write back, and I'll be sure to send you a follow-up on Facebook.

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About DrTom

I was a professor at Cornell University, where I worked for almost 30 years in the Dept. of Natural Resources, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. In the early 1980s, students began calling me DrTom, so I have revived that name here.
I have been married to my college sweetheart for 45 years. We have three adult children and three grandchildren. In November 2008, I retired to our rural property in the Finger Lakes region of upstate NY where Robin and I live with our black lab Zeus. I enjoy watching organisms and their behavior on my land, especially while sipping a scotch and smoking a cigar. My writing contains the observations and musings of a guy who thinks that life is pretty interesting and extremely humorous. Let's have some fun.